3 Questions to Ask About Outsourcing Your Social Media Management

When it comes to social media, the question construction business owners should be asking themselves, is not whether to use social media, but should they be doing it in-house?

Keeping your social media marketing under your own roof may seem like a good idea initially. This makes sense especially for small, mom and pop businesses with limited revenue potential operating on tight margins.

But, if your business employs more than 10 people, has revenues in the millions, and has a strong need to market itself to rise above competitors in a crowded marketplace, there are a few reasons why you might consider hiring an outside agency instead.

Do You Have the Right People?

Let's start by looking at the cost of employing someone full-time. In Canada, the national average annual salary for a social media manager is $49,837. If you were to convert that to an hourly rate, you'd be paying someone $24 per hour for a regular 40-hour work week.

That doesn't take into account additional costs for employee benefits (medical/dental coverage, disability insurance, retirement plans, etc.). Not to mention desk space, computers, and office supplies.

Going by the above example, it's likely most small businesses might be reluctant to employ a dedicated social media manager in-house. That means you'll either be taking that responsibility on yourself, or assigning one of the members of your team, most likely an intern or junior administrative person.

Do you really want to add an additional task to become one more item on someone's to-do list?If we're honest, most of us have more than enough on our plates at work as it is. Do you really want to add an additional task to become one more item on someone's to-do list? You'll run the risk of it being addressed sporadically, and done in haste, when and if it gets done at all. That's a recipe for disaster.

Do You Have the Right Knowledge and Skills?

Let's suppose whomever you assign finds the time to consistently post to your social media outlets. There are other factors regarding their suitability you should consider:

• What training or experience do they have with marketing and communications?
• How knowledgable are they about using a wide variety of social media platforms?
• Can they develop a social media strategy to ensure effective messaging that interests and engages your audience?
• Are they capable of creating content for sharing? (Graphics, videos, blog posts, pdf downloads, etc.)
• Do they understand how to measure results and adjust their strategy in response?

And if your in-house person is not yourself, and they're capable of doing all of the above, how much of your own time will be spent managing their efforts to run your social media program?

Remember, when it's your own employee, you're responsible for ensuring that continuity is maintained should something happen to them. What if they fall ill, go on holiday, take a leave of absence, or worst of all, quit? Do you have all the login information secured and can you cover for their absence?

Do You Have the Right Digital Resources?

Another reason to outsource your social media management to a professional agency is for the variety of resources needed to do the work efficiently.

Are you prepared to invest in software such as graphics and video editing programs? How about social media dashboards for scheduling, responding and tracking social media posts? Will you set up accounts for the stock images, graphics, video and audio clips you may need to use in your posts?

Any good marketing agency will have these tools and will be constantly upgrading the software, skills and knowledge necessary to use them effectively. Additionally, social media marketing companies will either have their own content creators on staff or be connected to professional writers, designers, web developers, and marketing freelancers to ensure there's no shortage of engaging content.

Your social media management provider should also be capable of doing more than simply posting to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. As organic and viral reach are being increasingly throttled, online and social advertising is becoming more vital for lead generation and developing sales growth.

Being able to introduce and integrate email marketing solutions to augment and leverage the audience you attract through social media will increase your conversions and help move prospects through your sales funnel. But you can't simply send mail out from your own server, you'll need special programs to ensure you aren't flagged for spamming people.

As you're probably beginning to realize, there are a lot of different pieces of the online marketing puzzle for you or your in-house employee to have to juggle should you take it on yourself. Plus, you may discover the hard way that doing social media properly for your business takes more than one or two hours a week.

If an agency works with businesses similar to yours, it's likely they already have advanced knowledge about your industry and how to communicate effectively with your target audience. So why struggle to learn all the ins and outs of social media marketing for your market?

Investing in Qualified Professionals Makes the Most Sense!

For some people, investing in an outside social media management team may, on first glance, seem expensive. After all, everyone can do Facebook, just as everyone knows how to write or snap a picture. However, as anyone who's hired a professional writer or photographer knows, the difference in quality and the impact of having professional work done for you is huge.

you're making the choice to work with dedicated professionals who do this work all the timeWhen you outsource your social media management, you're making the choice to work with dedicated professionals who do this work all the time. Not somebody who's trying to find a spare minute to do the work. Not somebody who's hoping to learn how to do it from some online guru's webinar that's really a sales pitch for his own high-priced education series.

Instead, you're hiring someone who's already equipped with the knowledge, skills, programs, experience and carefully developed processes to be a successful remote member of your own marketing team.

It's true that your in-house person will be more closely connected to the day-to-day events in your business. So cutting corners on your online image and reputation may initially seem like a good trade off over hiring a professional. It's possible though, to assign members of your in-house staff to liaise with your external social media team to make certain your messaging reflects those aspects unique to your company culture, along with your industry expertise, and the value you provide your clients.

Using this team approach, you'll find you end up saving more through consistently high-quality work which drives better results. Doing that will leave you free to concentrate on what you do best: running your business.

If you'd like to learn more about hiring your own social media team, talk to us.